Canadian food-tech firm New School Foods has announced the creation of NS/TX Industries (NS/TX): a larger company that will be home to its manufacturing platform, consumer brand, and manufacturing operations.
The company's scaffolding process, patented by the business, is said to be the first to utilize directional freezing on a large scale, producing 'hyper-realistic' whole-cut substitutes made from plant-based muscle fibers and connective tissue integrated into one macrostructure.
This technology and production line was utilized to create New School Foods' alt-seafood lines, including its signature plant-based salmon. The technology has subsequently been demonstrated to function for applications in red meat alternatives, like steak and bone-in ribs.
As per coherent market insights, the plant-based meat industry will increase at a 12.0% CAGR from 2025-2032. The market size is USD 9.43 Bn in 2025 and is anticipated to rise by approximately USD 20.86 Bn in 2032. Market size is fueled by increased health and environmental concerns.
The industry-standard manufacturing procedure of extrusion, according to New School Foods, has been found wanting in its capacity to develop alt-protein products that are satisfactory for consumers. With the NS/TX platform, the company stated it will launch additional meat alternative products with a natural and genuine appearance, cook, flavor, and texture.
In order to accommodate a broad variety of alt-meat and alt-seafood items, the platform has been engineered to accommodate maximum versatility. The scaffold macrostructure can be fashioned into any geometry and size, and scaffolds can be embedded with plant-based 'bones' to replicate steak and ribs.
Texture can be varied by adjusting muscle fiber diameter, length, and resistance to suit any meat type. Texture, flavor, and appearance can also be varied by adjusting the pattern and content of the connective tissue to suit requirements. Multi-layered scaffolds can be loaded with almost any protein, liquid oil, flavor, or color, the company explained in a statement.
NS/TX is intended to enable a more general mission and more impressive manufacturing capabilities. It will be the umbrella entity for New School Foods, the consumer and restaurant-facing brand for the company's consumer products; NS/TX R&D, a culinary and scientific innovation group that works with other companies to create customized formulations and products based on the platform; and NS/TX Manufacturing, taking the company's technology public and working with other food brands to create and scale their own (private/white label) and co-branded products.
New School Foods' consumer-facing business sells a portfolio that consists of the flagship whole-cut plant-based salmon fillet, a newly introduced salmon burger substitute, and future new meat offerings.
Chris Bryson, New School Foods' founder, and CEO, stated: "Our scaffolding technology has proven to be more versatile than we had envisioned, and demonstrated that it can be an excellent manufacturing".
We've been spending the past year ramping up our production process into an assembly line that can produce all these products, and we made the decision that we don't want to keep this technology under one brand. The development of NS/TX enables us to collaborate with other brands to develop and make the next generation of alternative protein products alternative to extrusion for red meat as well as for seafood applications."
The directional freezing process produces a product that is started 'raw' and changes when it is cooked, similar to regular meat. When scaling the process over the past year, the company averred that it identified the fact that, similar to the conventional meat industry, the scrap from forming its entire cuts are tremendous by-products, such as ground or flaked meats and fish, maximizing efficiency and reducing material wastage.
This news comes after a series of significant milestones for the firm, such as the rollout of its flagship salmon fillet in over 30 restaurants in Canada, joint ventures with Bondi Produce and Gordon Food Service, and the opening of its vertically integrated V1 production line.
Since its inception, the firm has raised more than $19 million in financing from investors and partners such as Inter IKEA, Protein Industries Canada, and SDTC.
Source:
Ecommerce PLatform: FOODBEV MEDIA Ltd.
Company: New School Foods
